I visited Gwyneth Paltrow's website, Goop, for the first time the other day, because I was looking for gift ideas for my wife, Karel. After surveying suggestions about trips to Marrakech and a $52 leather flyswatter, I began to wonder if Goop is unwittingly written specifically for hedge fund managers and plantation owners—people who believe that the things we should "Do," "See," "Be," and "Get" in life are mostly very, very expensive. It's certainly not written for me.

Karel and I got married in our early 20s, before we had careers or a house or pretty much anything. Goop recommendations like $250 shorts and starting our own contemporary art collection were not in our budget; cans of Miller High Life and hanging out on the porch were. Nine years later, not much has changed. The big money goes for things like fixing our decaying bathroom floors (our plumber just told us that the second-floor toilet is "floating on a sea of rotted wood") and keeping the kids clothed, fed, and healthy. We live really simply everywhere else. One of the great treasures of married life is that you don't have to impress each other with cash and flash. Unless you're keeping up with the Paltrows, everything really worthwhile is pretty darn cheap. Such as:

$20 dates. What guy wants to shell out for a Bachelor-style super-date? Imagine how lame you'd feel if you rented the Hollywood Bowl, catered in all-you-can-eat ribs (that happens on Bachelor dates, right?), hired Josh Groban to serenade you, and then spent the whole time talking about the cat's flea medication or your kid's dyslexia. Awkward! On cheap dates you can talk about that stuff without feeling weird or unromantic or like you're wasting Josh Groban's time. Nothing beats dinner and a movie, a long walk at sunset, window-shopping at Home Depot, or skinny-dipping after breaking into the private pool at the old folks' home. (You can learn a lot about your partner by the way she treats the seniors when they inevitably catch the two of you making out on their deck furniture.)

After barely being able to get out of the house together for the last five years, Karel and I have come to appreciate any time together away from our children. We don't need opera tickets or a fancy dinner; we can be prepping for an IRS audit and as long as we're not with the kids, it's like a magical romantic scene from Disney's Aladdin, only with less singing and more cursing.

Target lingerie. When I met Karel, she had just stopped working in the fashion industry, where she had been designing mass-market lingerie. Her philosophy was that every woman deserved a cute set of sexy, affordable bras and panties. However, for her personal collection, she went with high-end stuff like Cosabella and Agent Provocateur. These lacy, barely-there confections were a point of pride for Karel and a great source of inspiration for me, but after we got married and started our cash-strapped lives together, her lingerie drawer slowly transitioned from couture to Target. I gotta say, I don't notice a difference in the visuals. And frankly, the Target stuff is a much bigger turn-on, because I can rip it off more easily and Karel doesn't get bummed out (no pun intended) if it gets ruined.

Also great: going nowhere. After I got married, I realized that, for the first time since I was about 16, I could stay in on Friday and Saturday nights and never again worry about running around like a madman until 4 a.m., trying to hook up. My idea of a perfect Friday night is a dozen crabs, a six-pack of beer, the kids in bed, and Karel and me at the kitchen table picking claws and talking. "Crab nights" count as high-end romance in my book, but even a cheaper evening of sharing a blanket on the couch watching old '80s sitcoms is a million times better than the fist-pumping, GTL grossness of a Friday night on the prowl.

Un-fabulous jewelry. Does any guy enjoy buying jewelry? I mean, it's intimidating, awkward, and always weird to be called "sir" by the salesperson. I generally walk away feeling like I've just been hustled into spending my money on something that came out of the ground that I can't eat. Lucky for me, Karel is an earthy girl. She likes to make her own un-precious, beaded jewelry, or have it made by people at craft fairs who smell like patchouli and are probably stoned. And I wouldn't trade the beaded Mexican wedding necklace I gave her on our first Christmas together for all the diamonds in a Lil Wayne video. She looks smokin' hot in it, and it's a reminder of not just how far we've come together but how good it's been since the beginning.

Kid-gazing. Everyone is so afraid that their relationship is going to become all about the kids, but the truth is, there is almost nothing as special as sharing the experience of watching your children grow up. I'm not sure it counts as cheap—Lord knows, raising kids is the last thing anyone would describe as "cheap." But the best moments are the ones that make you squeeze your partner's hand in silent astonishment and pride, like when your 5-year-old son includes his little sister in a game with his friends so "she won't be sad," or when your 2-year-old daughter tells a well-timed fart joke for the first time and cracks up a line of stony-faced adults at the DMV. Okay, that last one might have meant more to me than to Karel, but such moments are priceless, yet free. And you can't See or Get them on any website.